COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office
COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office
COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office
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7 MARCH <strong>2012</strong> SRI LANKA<br />
article 19 of the Convention (UNCAT concluding observations 2011) for the Fortyseventh<br />
session, 31 October – 25 November 201161, which considered the situation in<br />
Sri Lanka:<br />
―‗6. Notwithstanding the new circumstances prevailing since the defeat of the Liberation<br />
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the end of the military conflict that has consumed the<br />
country for nearly 30 years, and the State party‘s public commitment to the Committee<br />
that it has a zero-tolerance policy on torture as a matter of State policy and practice, the<br />
Committee remains seriously concerned about the continued and consistent allegations<br />
of widespread use of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of<br />
suspects in police custody, especially to extract confessions or information to be used in<br />
criminal proceedings. The Committee is further concerned at reports that suggest that<br />
torture and ill-treatment perpetrated by state actors, both the military and the police,<br />
have continued in many parts of the country after the conflict ended in May 2009 and is<br />
still occurring in 2011 (arts. 2, 4, 11 and 15).‖ (Paragraph 3.13)<br />
―‗18. The Committee remains concerned about the prevailing climate of impunity in the<br />
State party and the apparent failure to investigate promptly and impartially wherever<br />
there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committed.‘‖<br />
(Paragraph 3.07)<br />
8.40 The UNCAT‘s Concluding Observations of 25 November 2011 should be directly<br />
consulted in conjunction with the <strong>COI</strong> Bulletin of November 2011. The final version of<br />
the UNCAT Concluding Observations was released on 8 December 2011 and is<br />
accessible from here.<br />
8.41 The Amnesty International Annual <strong>Report</strong> 2011, Sri Lanka 157 released on 13 May 2011<br />
noted that ―Police and army personnel continued to torture or otherwise ill-treat<br />
detainees. Victims included detained Tamils suspected of links to the LTTE and<br />
individuals arrested for suspected ‗ordinary‘ criminal offences.‖<br />
8.42 The USSD 2010 report 158 observed:<br />
―The law makes torture a punishable offense and mandates a sentence of not less than<br />
seven years' imprisonment; however, security forces tortured and abused citizens.<br />
Human rights groups alleged that some security forces believed torture to be allowed<br />
under specific circumstances. Following a 2007 visit, UN Special Rapporteur (UNSR) on<br />
Torture Manfred Nowak concluded that ‗torture is widely practiced in Sri Lanka.‘ There<br />
was no indication that such practices had subsided. No accurate, publicly released<br />
statistics on reported torture cases were available.‖<br />
8.43 The USSD 2010 report 159 went on to add:<br />
―Civil society groups and former prisoners reported on several torture cases. For<br />
example, former detainees of the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) at Boosa Prison<br />
157 Amnesty International, Annual <strong>Report</strong> 2011, Sri Lanka, released on 13 May 2011,<br />
http://amnesty.org/en/region/sri-lanka/report-2011 date accessed 19 May 2011<br />
158 US State Department 2010 Human Rights <strong>Report</strong>: Sri Lanka (USSD 2010), released on 8 April 2011,<br />
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2010/sca/154486.htm , date accessed 11 May 2011, Section 1b<br />
159 US State Department 2010 Human Rights <strong>Report</strong>: Sri Lanka (USSD 2010), released on 8 April 2011,<br />
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2010/sca/154486.htm , date accessed 11 May 2011, Section 1b<br />
The main text of this <strong>COI</strong> <strong>Report</strong> contains the most up to date publicly available information as at 3 February <strong>2012</strong>.<br />
Further brief information on recent events and reports has been provided in the Latest News section<br />
to 2 <strong>March</strong> <strong>2012</strong>.<br />
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